Morris’s Socialist Diary offers a fascinating insight into a period of intense political activity. It reveals his hopes for socialism, his shrewd analysis of the opposition, his views on revolution and media bias, and reports the grim economic conditions of the time. Professor Florence S. Boos is our guide, ahead of her new edition of the Diary.

Professor in the Department of English at the University of Iowa, she is also the general editor of the online William Morris Archive, and has published critical works on the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, most recently History and Poetics in the Early Writings of William Morris, 1856-1870 (2015). She has also published annotated critical editions of Morris’s The Earthly Paradise, The Socialist Diary, and The Life and Death of Jason; and nearly two hundred articles, essays, introductions, and reviews on related subjects. The new edition of The Socialist Diary is expected in 2018.